The Guilt Of Odysseus In Homer's The Odyssey

In Book X of The Odyssey, Odysseus is still telling the Phaeacians about his long journey. There he is picking up the part where he stayed on the island where, “Aeolus hosted [him] one entire month” (Fagles 231). While leaving this island, Aeolus gifted Odysseus with a sack of wind, to make his way back home. While on the ship for nine days and nights, one the tenth night, Odysseus became sleepy, so he slept. While sleeping, his crew mates became aware of the sack that Aeolus gave him thinking it was a treasure, Odysseus was holding out on them. So with all the crewmates curiosity, “they loosed the sack and all the winds burst out” (Fagles 232). Odysseus suddenly woke up, while the winds blew the ship back to Aeolus’s island. Aeolus justifies that the immortals hate Odysseus because of this bad misfortune.

In Book XII, Eurylochus makes notice of Odysseus’s shipmates of how they are” half- dead with labor, [and] starved for sleep” (Fagles 280).

So Eurylochus urged Odysseus to stop over on land so they that they may rest. And Odysseus gives the order for his crew if they, “come on a herd of cattle or fine flock of sheep, not one man among us- will slaughter an ax or ram’ (Fagles 280). And they all promised they wouldn’t hurt any cattle. While on this land for a whole month because of the wind, Odysseus fell asleep, and that is when Eurylochus “opened up his fatal plan to friends” (Fagles 281). Since the food was running out on ship and they were growing hungry, Eurylochus proposed to slaughter the cattle for food, and the shipmates went along with this act. When Odysseus awoke he was angry and blamed Zeus for giving him sleep that “lulled him into disaster’ (Fagles

282).
Homer could be using sleep as a symbol or signal structure of a shift in Odysseus’ journey back home. Each time Odysseus falls asleep, so far, his crewmates makes an error, in which not sending them forward on their journey, but hence, backwards. It’s like Odysseus wants to get back home, but the gods are playing with the minds of his shipmates enabling him to back home. And this shift doesn’t occur while Odysseus is awake because then he is in “control” of what is happening on this “voyage,” but while asleep his crewmates are not necessarily under his “influence.” And while not being under Odysseus’ influence they are then able to decide their own decisions for example, opening up the sack and slaughtering the cattle. Not only does Homer uses sleep as a symbol of the shift in the journey, but also a way to be careful when sleeping as to one never knows what may happen.